You may have already heard that FileMaker, Inc. announced the company is becoming Claris International Inc. If you currently use FileMaker, you’re likely wondering how this rebranding will impact your day-to-day operations. Likewise, if you’ve been considering using FileMaker, you’re probably curious as to how this change may affect your decision moving forward.

In this post, we’ll focus on answering these questions so you have a clear picture of what the future has in store.

There’s a Lot Behind a Name

On the surface, FileMaker becoming Claris may appear to be little more than a simple rebranding strategy. However, as you dig a little deeper, you’ll discover that the change has more to do with the company’s evolving vision for the future than PR. 

Leadership at FileMaker felt that the words file and maker were simply too specific to align with the evolving needs of their customers. As a platform that’s now used by more than 50,000 companies and 1 million end users, the Workplace Innovation Platform has reached a pivotal point in its development.

As Ann Monroe explains, the company decided to evolve as Claris for three key reasons:

Legacy

In 1986, Claris began as a subsidiary of Apple. In 1998, the company was renamed FileMaker, Inc. to focus on its flagship product. The move to rebrand as Claris is not just a nod to the company’s history; it’s a move to take a more holistic approach to workplace innovation in the future.

A Deeper Meaning

The word Claris is derived from the Latin word clarus, meaning clear, bright, and shining. The company believes that the word has worldwide relevance to customers in every nation as their global footprint continues to expand. At the same time, this deeper meaning more closely represents what the company’s technology can offer organizations today and tomorrow.

Multi-Service Offerings

Moving forward, Claris hopes to provide multi-service workplace innovation offerings that unify a host of services under a single robust platform. 

What Happens to FileMaker?

Even with this evolution, FileMaker will continue to live on as one of Claris’s unique offerings. But what about the other service offerings? While a more precise answer to this question will unfold soon, we do know that Claris’s service offerings will focus on “a combination of custom apps and third-party services” that allow customers to “solve problems faster and build applications that have no limits on their capabilities.” (Source)

Claris has acquired Stamplay, a company that specializes in creating sophisticated enterprise platforms with connectors for 150 cloud services. No doubt, then, that Claris’s evolving offerings will be geared toward helping your organization achieve your true potential by leveraging the power of cloud environments, and FileMaker can still be a vital piece of the puzzle.

Srini Gurrapu explains that the future of the Claris platform is built on four pillars:

1. Cloud-First: New technology will be built in the cloud with continuing support for hybrid on-premise customers.
2. Native Web and Mobile Experience: Native web and mobile experience will offer consistency on every platform.
3. API integration and Orchestration: Workflow integrations will be orchestrated with cloud and on-premise services.
4. Emerging Technologies: All services will be enhanced with artificial intelligence and advanced technologies like augmented reality and virtual reality.

Goals for the Future

As the decision to become Claris was made with the future in mind, the organization’s leadership has laid out specific goals for the next several years. 

These goals include:

Growing the Developer Community

Leaders at Claris hope to grow the community from 50,000 to 150,000 developers over the next few years.

Empowering Problem Solvers

The FileMaker platform has always excelled at empowering the individuals closest to a specific problem. That’s why the company hopes to expand the developer community in sectors like healthcare, construction, municipal government, and K–12 education. By focusing on these industries, organizations will be able to better pinpoint the root of their problems and use technology to address them.

Leading the FileMaker Developer Community

At Skeleton Key, our experts are proud to be at the forefront of the FileMaker—and now the Claris—development community. If you have any more questions about how these changes may affect your existing FileMaker solution, don’t hesitate to contact our team, and we’ll be happy to provide answers right away.